The timed obstacle course discriminates against women because it includes tasks which are designed to suit the male figure, according to behavioural scientist Professor Craig Jackson.

Women are unfairly expected to complete the fitness test within the same time limit as men, all the while being subjected to wolf whistles and jeers, and can be found guilty of misconduct if they fail, he added.

The findings, to be presented at the British Science Festival in Newcastle this week, relate to the Gender-Neutral Timed Obstacle Course (GeNTOC), an eight-stage obstacle course used by some forces to screen job candidates.

Participants crawl along the floor, cross a balance beam, climb stairs, duck under a gate, weave through cones, pick up and move cones, and drag a “dead body” across the floor.

Each officer must complete three laps of the course in three minutes and forty-five seconds, and if they make a mistake at any point they must return to the start of that obstacle.

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Prof Jackson examined five years’ worth of data on 1,701 candidates from a large Metropolitan constabulary.

Some 93 per cent of men passed the test, despite half of all male candidates being overweight. In contrast just 60 per cent of women completed the test within the time limit, even though only a third were overweight.

"Police forces have a number of officers labelled fit when they're unfit, and they're screening out officers who are fit – they just happen to be female,” Prof Jackson said.

“The story here is not about fat coppers, it's not about blobby bobbies, although we did find evidence of blobby bobbies. The story here is that the test that is used isn't fit for purpose.”

Prof Jackson said it is “clearly” biased to expect women to finish within the same time as men, and added that certain tasks are inherently biased against female participants.

For example, on the “gate weave” task where participants had to run between cones, women were responsible for 61 per cent of all mistakes.

“The gates were not wide enough so men with slinky snake hips could weave through quite easily,” he said. “Females weren't, they were wobbling and moving around catching the gates, going back and having to do it again.”

Women also made almost twice as many errors on the “body drag” task, which came at the very end of the obstacle course.

“I think its no coincidence that it happened to be the last test – stamina could be an issue here,” Prof Jackson said. "Our recommendation is, get rid of the test. If you are going to keep it, modify it to make it less discriminatory and unfair.”

As well as facing obstacles designed to favour men, women also had to contend with a hostile and demeaning atmosphere, he added.

"When I've seen this test being applied, it is a little bit like a very sexist meat market," he said.

"Lots of male officers gather around whilst the female recruits bounce and jiggle and run around, and they're wolf whistling and clapping – it's quite a sexist environment to be in.

“Maybe get rid of it and go for something more like exam conditions, where females have a little bit more privacy and dignity."

The findings, to be published in the Occupational Medicine journal, come as police forces prepare to roll out annual fitness testing for officers for the first time.

The drive to improve physical conditioning follows an official review by Tom Winsor found that three quarters of male Metropolitan Police officers were either overweight or obese.

Although the annual test will be a simple “shuttle run” designed to test stamina, police forces can set their own tests and Prof Jackson said some could include elements of GeNTOC.

A spokeswoman for the College of Policing, which oversees police training, did not believe the GeNTOC test was widely used but could not say how many police forces employed it.

Assistant Chief Constable Robin Merrett, head of the College's national fitness working group, said: "Annual fitness testing is being introduced to policing and involves a 15 metre shuttle run to be completed to an endurance level of 5:4 and is compliant with equality legislation.

"There is no obstacle course or upper strength testing as part of this annual fitness test. We will be ensuring that the fitness test does not unlawfully discriminate against gender or other protected groups, and for the first 12 month the College of Policing will audit data on pass and failures to understand how specific groups are performing."